KINGSTON, Jamaica—Member of Parliament for St Andrew Eastern Fayval Williams has declared that Speaker of the House of Representatives Juliet Holness has members of the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) under “heavy manners”.

Williams, who is also Minister of Finance and the Public Service, made the remark Thursday evening as she addressed the annual West Kingston Constituency Conference at the Tivoli Gardens High School.

The relationship between the speaker and Opposition members has been testy at best, and antagonistic at worst, as was seen by the near brawl between Government and Opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) at the end of the sitting of the House of Representatives on November 3.

On that occasion, following what the Opposition said was biased behaviour by the speaker, Opposition MP Mikael Phillips had to be separated from Government member Desmond McKenzie. Phillips has since apologised for hurling expletives at McKenzie, who he said spoke about his deceased mother twice.

Said Williams on Thursday: “The PNP would have you believe that nothing is going on; they would have you focused on the Speaker of the House. But guess what? She has brought a lot of discipline to Parliament. Once upon a time people used to get up and chat, chat chat. Now she have dem under heavy manners”.

Continuing, Williams said, “Now you have to know what you’re saying when you get up to speak. You can’t just blah, blah, blah because Parliament is serious business”.

According to her, “the PNP don’t like that because they want to get up and say whatever they want to say but we not going to allow them to do that. There is discipline in the party (Jamaica Labour Party), there is discipline in Parliament, there is discipline in Jamaica and we have been building that discipline day by day and we not going to relent, we not going to give up”.

Holness, who also addressed the conference, said she merely follows the rules that govern the Parliament, the standing orders. The third-term MP for St Andrew East Rural said she had taken the time to know the standing orders which she noted have remained the same for 64 years except for minor changes.

Holness noted that when she was first appointed speaker, she received bipartisan support. “By the time third term come, some people never so happy again. Some people up in dem feelings fi true,” she said. She told the conference that she has always been a disciplined person and shared that having read the standing orders, she decided that in the same way every Jamaican has to follow the laws of the land which are made by parliamentarians, she would insist that parliamentarians follow the standing orders.

“No matter what we do wrong, once we break the law, all when we never know say that is the law. Dem say ignorance of the law is no excuse,” she remarked.

“So we have to obey the law like you [the general public] have to obey the law and the law in Parliament they call it the standing orders. It means that if we want you as good citizens of Jamaica to follow the rules and the law, we must follow the rules and the law that we set for ourselves in the Parliament,” Holness stated.

-Lynford Simpson